Page 71 of Night of the Witch
His eyes glitter with an evolved childhood mischief, one now fixed on madness and greed.
Dieter smiles at me one last time. I am stone.
“I will see you soon, Fritzichen,” he coos. “We’ll have a nice bonfire for you. And we’ll see if you scream when I brand you—Mama didn’t. But you know that, don’t you?”
I do. Intimately.
Bile crawls up my throat, and I fight not to touch the spot between my breasts, where he branded her, where he’ll brandme.
Except he won’t. I’ll escape long before he gets the chance to.
Dieter walks off, taking Otto’s arm and pulling him along.
Terror floods my limbs, pins me even more immovably in place at the sight of my brother holding on to Otto. But he has been at Dieter’s side for years. He knows how conniving my brother is, how deranged. I have to believe he’s capable of outplaying him, and that this plan will work.
But Otto doesn’t know that my brother is a witch. That Dieter draws his power from wild magic. That the head of the hexenjägers came from the very power that they root out and burn.
Because I didn’t tell him. Because I did to him what Mama did to me, let him go into this with incomplete information.
What have I done?
A hand touches my elbow. “Fräulein?”
A shriveled old man stands next to me, a head shorter than me, his sagging skin speckled with age spots and pox scars. His mouth stretches in a prodding smile, showing gaps for missing teeth.
“Come,” he says. “Sit. We will make room.”
He bats his hand, but already people are adjusting, shifting to make a space for me on the soiled cobblestones like I’m some welcome guest at their home.
That breaks the tears down my cheeks. I dig the heel of one palm into my eye, fighting to remember the sensation of Otto holding me, showing me how to breathe.
Does he regret helping me now that he knows what information I kept from him? Does he hate me as much as I hate myself?
“Come now, Fräulein,” the old man coaxes. “All is not grim. We are innocent, hm? Innocence shall prevail.”
Will you let it prevail? the voice demands.Or will you continue to ignore what I can do for you?
Stop, I tell the voice.Leave me alone.
I have seen what giving in to wild magic has done to my brother.
Nothing,nothing, will make me follow his path.
Leave me alone, I say it again, only this time to the agony in my heart, the grief that ever seeks to make me collapse.Leave me alone.
I have work to do.
I force my eyes open, tears still wet on my cheeks. I may have failed Otto by not telling him all my secrets, but I willnotfail these people, this one chance at stopping my brother’s horror.
There are no hexenjägers outside the bars, all relegated to their stations around the basilica now that I’ve been locked safely away.
My eyes turn to the old man, blazing suddenly, and the concern on his face twitches into surprise.
“You’re right,” I tell him. “All is not grim. Not now that you have me.”
20
OTTO
